Most games have pretty clear rules: (baseball) you can steal home if the catcher drops the ball; (football) getting tackled in the end zone gives the other team two points; (Scrabble) making up words doesn't count as a triple word score, not matter how creative that pseudo-word might be..
Marriage is not one of those games.
There are no rules. The two people who are involved in the marriage contract make up the rules as they go along. The problem with such flexibility is that once a precedent is set, reversing that ruling is nearly impossible.
You let your spouse, I don't know, let's say, smoke meth, and you've set a precedent. If you don't divorce that person or force them into rehab, they have broken the rules and gotten away with it. If you catch your spouse cheating, and you don't divorce them and/or force them into couple's counseling, they've gotten away with it.
So when trust is betrayed over and over and over, those are the new rules. The new rules are that there are no rules.
I fucked up my marriage contract up so beautifully that the only rules which remain are the ones which apply to ME. I will raise the kids. I will be the responsible one. I will organize all activities regarding all familial activities. I will ensure the family has life insurance and health insurance and dental insurance, and I will be the one who pays all bills associated with those check-ups and procedures.
I will be the one who stays home, while the other one stays out until 4:30 in the morning doing god-knows-what.
While my kids might look at me and see a sad sack with no social life, they will at least see someone who is there for them when they need something.
It's probably true that selfish people live longer, because I have given up everything (including my social life and personality, apparently) in order to provide order for my children. I know my children don't want me to be miserable, but they certainly don't want the opposite, which is having no stasis in their lives.
Someone has to be the grown up, and (unfortunately) (in my house) the rule has become that I am the only grown up. I am the one who doesn't take my kids to drunken company parties where the work-sluts show their tits to everyone.
When a 40-some-year-old person needs to be reminded to dust (in passive-aggressive finger-writing on their furniture), there's a problem. Being a slob is only really tolerable when a person is a teenager or a college student. And even then, having a coat of grime on your bedroom furniture is pretty fucking disgusting. I moved into my own bedroom about six years ago to avoid having to deal with another person's revolting habits. But ... that person still takes up space in my house, so ...
The Game should have rules by which people abide. Life shouldn't be a free-for-all in which people do what they they do simply because they can get away with it. And those of us who let those other parasitic people get away with it should stop. I haven't hit the Full Stop yet, but I think the most appropriate metaphor is ripping off the Band-Aid. Just pull that fucking thing off and let it hurt for a second, and then enjoy the air on your bare skin.
I can't wait to feel the fresh air.
